Mark and I started out with a little trip down to Dorset, primarily for Sam and Georgina's wedding. We travelled down the previous day, but the journey took FOREVER due to traffic and roadworks and we arrived late. Add to that, the weather took a turn for the worst as we arrived and poured with rain all afternoon and evening.
We stayed in Stinsford, just outside Dorchester, which those in the know will know as the place where Thomas Hardy is buried (well, his heart is buried in Stinsford, his ashes are in Westminster Abbey, in Poet's Corner), and we walked over to the church to visit the grave. We were going to walk out into the wood bit with the stream so I could show Mark the scene of many a Fellows Family Picnic, but the weather was too misery so we headed back to the B+B. It's been a long while since there has been a Fellows Family Thomas Hardy Trip, I think it should be resurrected soon. Especially as the one time Mark came with us the cottage at Bockhampton was closed.
Anyway, we ended up driving into Dorchester for the evening, having pizza for tea and a few drinks in the Wetherspoons, before taking a bottle of port and some good chocolate back to the B+B and watching some TV. We had to be up early on Saturday for the wedding, before which an emergency shopping trip had to be made as I'd left part of my outfit in Bristol, error.
The wedding was at a Victorian hall in another village north of Dorchester, it was a nice place.
I won't bore you with details but it was a super fun day of friends, cider, dancing and even some sun at the right moments (i.e. photo time!)
Sam and Georgie had got this tandem bicycle that they both left on at the end of the night, they were obviously really well rehearsed on it but a lot of the rest of us were a bit wobbly! It requires a lot of teamwork.
My favourite thing was that they made (yes, hand-made!) an individual owl for EVERY SINGLE GUEST.
On Sunday, we scoffed our big veggie breakfast (any B+B that finds you Linda McCartney sausages when you tell them you are vegetarian gets a GOLD STAR in my book) and drove down into Weymouth to meet up with everyone again. Everyone was a bit lacklustre to say the least, haha, but we had a couple of drinks at the pub and Sam and Georgina came to say goodbye to everyone before they flew off back to Melbourne a couple of days later. Weymouth is nice on the sea front, the beach is really big and golden and it seems a smarter sort of place. Mark and I got in a few rounds of cricket (cricket? sort of....) on the beach with Ed, Gen, Cat and Alex, thanks to Ed's provision of the smallest cricket bat known to man.
And then it was time to drive home, Essex for Ed and Gen, Surrey for Alex and Cat and Bristol for Mark and I, ready for a good night's sleep and the next adventure....
Which involving an early start the next morning was not something I was originally overjoyed about! But I was off to London for a day of fun times. Mark wasn't joining me, preferring instead to stay in Bristol and have my mum make him cups of tea, but he did kindly drive me to the coach station nice and early.
Arriving after a couple of hours of motorway boredom, I made my way up to King's Cross and the British Library, to see their exhibition on Mervyn Peake, which was very interesting and very thorough. I learnt a good deal about Mervyn Peake I didn't know and it was great to see his early Gormenghast sketches and plans as well as those from when he illustrated Alice in Wonderland.
I then went over east to meet my old Sydney gang! Rosie, who was on my team at HCF, was visiting Europe with her bf Alex, and our other two teammates Mark and Daniella came into London so we could all have a meetup. I found them all in the Pride of Spitalfields off Brick Lane and we had a good old catch-up, before Mark and Daniella had to set off to make Daniella's flight back home to Glasgow. Rosie, Alex and I went to the Natural History Museum for the rest of the afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the animals, especially this one:
I think the Natural History Museum is my favourite museum at the moment. It is certainly the one in London I go to the most. They also have a really great room with lifesize models of whales and sharks and dolphins and stuff, which is my favourite bit. I sound like I'm about 5 but it really is good!
